High-tech footprint and solutions

Data center efficiency is a big issue, especially as energy costs climb.

The electricity consumed by microprocessors is increasing by 16 percent per year as they become more powerful, he said, which contributes to a 14 percent increase in the power consumed by each new generation of servers. At the same time, energy prices in the U.S. have increased by about 12 percent on average for the past three years and are expected to keep climbing.

The head of high tech lobbying firm, TechCEO, talks about tech companies position with respect to federal policies. He is followed by a Sun Microsystems VP on carbon reduction approaches.

High-tech clearly has the opportunity to play a role not only in mitigating their own footprint but offering solutions beyond their own impact.

In addition to the obvious ways companies can conserve energy - using videoconferencing instead of travel, cutting down on paper and having workers telecommute - the report looked in detail at four activities that are big contributors to global warming that the high-tech industry could change, partly by creating tools that would measure and monitor energy consumption and hold companies accountable.

They are: creating efficient motor systems in China; efficient warehousing, transportation and delivery of products in Europe; efficient buildings in North America; and efficient power grids in India.

The report calculated savings in energy costs by 2020 at $946.5 billion.

Rising cost of food

The cost of food has been soaring - partly oil but also water:

The state is estimating crop losses of $167 million for 2008, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Several events coincided. A court reduced the water that can be moved from the flush north to the drier south in order to protect the endangered delta smelt fish. And the snow in the Sierras started strong, but stopped abruptly mid winter. Then the spring rains never came.

Of course, there is also the mid-west floods.

Updated: Mt. View encumbers itself

Mt. View has been among the cities to appear to chart an assertive course towards climate action following signing the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. However, it appears to have encumbered itself with a 68 member sustainability task force and a requirement by the council for a cost-benefit analysis for every recommendation. Due diligence is one thing but this may be extreme. Not surprisingly, several months after the task force was established, the methodology is still under discussion. Recommendations are due to the council late Sept/early Oct.

Update: The complexity of the efforts need not be high. San Mateo's 9 month, 8 member committee process is instructive. It was both substantive and expeditious. Time is of the essence and the fundamentals on the types of opportunities for cities are pretty well known.

Bush administration concern over environment

The Bush Administration has issued a two-year moratorium on solar projects on federal land citing the need for environmental impact assessments. Good to see their concern for the environment really come through when you need it.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry.”

As the federal government rushes to drill for oil in every spot in reach there should be little question about what is motivating this action. The one piece of good news is that this rule can be reversed on January 21st, 2008

Stream blogging AB32 scoping plan #4

Several representatives testify. Applause for high speed rail, reducing vehicle miles traveled (improved land use).

Petroleum industry representative offers positive sounding comments. Want to see more on carbon capture and efficiency. cost effective, cap & trade helps, a lot of work to do in land-use change, diesel will be an issue "requiring more collaboration."

Stuart Cohen TALC & Climate Plan: applaud land use, need improved targets for vehicle miles traveled. Sierra Club also echoes this theme. Support for "indirect source review" - ie: mobile sources. Use CEQA as a tool.

"New Voice of Business": Focused on climate and transitioning to new energy economy. Worked with E2 to pass AB32. "This [plan] makes me proud to be a Californian" Action is good for the economy.

Environmental organizations have a strong presence: PCL, Nature Conservancy, Communities for Better Environment, Environment California, Auctioning permits, forest protection should be supported.

A couple agencies speak supportively: LAPWD, SMUD, "allowances will be 'challenging discussions'" Los Angeles transit agency "little emphasis on role of transit" - local municipalities very concerned with attorney general, need help with transit funding (want dedicated funding) and CEQA. Recognize that transit footrpint may need to increase for region's footprint to decline.

Manufacturing: applaud market based mechanisms. want to expand role of cap & trade.

Black chamber of commerce: want to be a collaborative partner, want to participate in educational process, congratulations. Need to sell this to the public, people are concerned. Hispanic chamber of commerce also offered similar comments.

CA ARB Chair Mary Nichols wraps up the session and cites Jared Diamond's book Collapse on the urgency and opportunity (apparently the book not only includes discouraging examples of past collapses of societies which failed to protect vital resources, the book also includes good examples of action). She thanks everyone and calls out especially business and petroleum industry for being supportive in the face of challenge and opportunity.



Everyone applauds the board and staff on their good work.

Stream blogging AB32 scoping plan #3

High speed rail is incorporated as part of the plan. More stringent building and appliance standards. 33% RPS for all utilities.

Local climate action plans are "encouraged". Large stationary sources will require audits.

Refrigerators, air conditioners, fire retardant, insulating foam will have capture measures. 20% per capita water use reduction by 2020 including water recycling.

Under evaluation:
market strategies for transportation (fee-bates), reduce coal electricity, more aggressive efficiency, plus other prospective measures.

Stream blogging AB32 scoping plan #2

More on the scoping plan. Mixed approach of regulation, voluntary measures and fees. The scoping plan includes existing laws including the Pavley auto emissions law still in limbo due to Bush obstructionism. "Cap & trade provides insurance and sets the stage for post 2020 reductions. Not recommending local govts be included in cap & trade."

State government must lead by example. also look at investments and long term planning to include "climate shadow". Cap & trade: large industrial and electricity start in 2012 other industries added over time. Cap declines over time.

Some allowances distributed initially for free. By 2012 all allowances sold. Limited use of offsets. "Stiff penalties for violations" on trades.

Transportation. fuels eventually included in cap & trade. Pavley standards are expected to bring the largest gains. If Pavley not approved and implemented AB32 requires an alternative strategy for equal gains.

Stream blogging AB32 scoping plan

The California air resources board is receiving the draft 'scoping plan' outlining the plan for implementing AB32. Hearing is streaming here: www.arb.ca.gov. One interesting item already discussed is how some non-Kyoto gasses and particulates factor into climate. Some gasses like carbon monoxide and hydrogen aggravate climate by indirectly creating methane. Particulates are more mixed but many including low level soot and black carbon also exacerbate climate due to heat absorption.

Native plants impacts

New study from UC Berkeley looks a the impacts of climate on California's native plants like redwoods and native oaks predicting significant movement northward for the range of those species.

McCain acknowledges drilling useless

Via DailyKos

At a town hall in Fresno, CA, McCain admitted that the offshore drilling proposal he unveiled last week would probably have mostly "psychological" benefits, NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy notes. "Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial."

Meanwhile, he is touting it as the solution to gas prices.

Updated: McCain looks to recover, offers battery incentive

McCain tries to undo some of the damage from his push last week to increase drilling.

"For every automaker who can sell a zero-emissions car, we will commit a $5,000 dollar tax credit for each and every customer who buys that car. For other vehicles, whatever type they may be, the lower the carbon emissions, the higher the tax credit," he said.

And he offered a big reward for whoever comes up with a technological breakthrough: "A $300 million prize for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

The added drilling won't won't reduce gas prices according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and Climate Progress points out that the battery prize is probably useless.

Updated: The Chronicle has more on the oil drilling proposals. Not surprisingly, it's opposed by a majority of Californians and could be trouble for McCain in other states.

Tamminen on climate

Terry Tamminen former chief policy advisor for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger talks to FastCompany about the state of the climate policy debate. It's an informative, wide-ranging discussion and includes some model projects with which he's involved.

Here is a segment where he speaks to costs:

Can you give us an example of how costs are lowered in this way?

California passed regulations over the past 30 years that incentivize energy-efficient appliances, buildings, renewable energy investments, and conservation. The result is that our average price per kilowatt of electricity is nearly the highest in the nation, but average bills are among the lowest. Californians consume 40 percent less electricity than average Americans -- and we have plenty of flat panel TVs, hot tubs, and air conditioners in the desert -- showing that energy prices are less relevant to consumers and businesses than how energy is generated and used. The same could be true for thoughtful pricing around greenhouse gases, whether imposed by strict regulation and fees or by cap-and-trade systems.

Air Resources Board to unveil scoping plan

California is moving towards implementation of the nation's most significant legislation on global warming to date, the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32). The implementation will have wide-ranging ramifications and the initial "scoping plan" will be unveiled Thursday (location details below). For local governments there are several areas where they will likely be affected:

What's at stake
While state government can enact far-reaching requirements to fight global warming, only local governments have jurisdiction over areas such as land use and planning.

The plan
The air board wants cities, counties and regional transportation agencies to organize and carry out their own plans to fight climate change. As an incentive, additional state funds could be made available to implement some local programs.

How it affects you
-- Californians may see denser urban developments and improved mass transit systems as an alternative to far-flung suburbs with long commutes.

-- Solar panels on the roofs of new housing developments could become more prevalent, and building codes may be revamped to encourage energy efficiency.

-- Carpooling could be increased by promoting casual carpools or creating carpooling clubs for commuters, and fleets of electric vehicles could be shared by residents for local trips.

It's worth noting that people are already looking for opportunities to live closer to transit although cities are behind in using the kind of urban planning to meet this demand.

Go or watch:

A draft of California's plan to fight global warming will be presented to the California Air Resources Board on Thursday at 9 a.m. The public meeting will be held at the Byron Sher Auditorium inside the California Environmental Protection Agency's headquarters at 1001 I St., Sacramento. Read the plan and watch a Webcast of the meeting at www.arb.ca.gov

Students innovate on solar

Students at UC Berkeley, MIT and Olin College are claiming a breakthrough solar configuration.

The crew spent about $5,000 to build the dish, and according to MIT Sloan School of Management lecturer David Pelly, it is the cheapest way he’s seen to harness that much sun power.

What is interesting here is the tremendous opportunity for innovation - small scale, cost effective. Also interesting is that this is not a photovoltaic which is much more expensive. It is quite likely that non-photovoltaic solar - concentrated solar of some kind - will be the breakthrough solar technology.

Delta at risk from climate

One perspective at the level of risk locally and abroad:

Once a saltwater tidal marsh, the Sacramento Delta has been transformed into an agricultural plain and an essential source of California's fresh water supply. Farm fields, roads and some delta islands that lie below sea level are protected by 1,100 miles (1,770 km) of levees.

She cited a recent study estimating a 66 percent chance of catastrophic failure of these levees in the next 50 years, which could result in floods and saltwater intrusion. Recovery costs could exceed $40 billion in this one delta, Brosnan said.

Bay Area & climate solutions for the poor

One of the challenges of climate change is getting inexpensive better technology in the hands of the masses of poor people. Here too the Bay Area is leading the charge.

LED lighting to replace kerosene lamps in India and China:

D.light Design has a mission that sounds both straightforward and challenging: replacing the kerosene lanterns used by one-quarter of the world's population, or 1.6 billion people, with cheap, portable LED sources.

Kerosene, which often is burned in a glass bottle with a wick, is a "terrible solution" for lighting, said Tozun, D.light Design's president. People get burned. The light itself is dim, making work and studying difficult. It emits carbon dioxide, and causes respiratory ailments.

Goldman and Tozun will be selling three designs of light-emitting diodes, from $12 to $25 a piece, that can be charged with small solar panels or via electricity. A fully charged product will emit 12 to 40 hours of light, depending on the brightness setting.

However, charging with photovoltaics is pricey. Instead it could be something like Potenco’s hand chargers.

Solar financing, growth and price drop

Solar continues to get easier as more companies are financing installations with $0 down. Not surprisingly installations are growing. This of course is drawing the attention of valley heavy-weights - a good rundown is on Green Wombat.

And a new study projects that solar could account for 10% of electric power by 2025, up from less than 0.1% currently, as solar achieves price parity.

The Utility Solar Assessment Study, produced by Co-op America and the Clean Edge research firm, projects that the cost of solar will fall from an average of $5.50 to $7 for a peak watt today to $1.43 to $1.62 per average peak watt by 2025. (A peak watt is the number of watts output when a solar panel is illuminated under test conditions.) At the same time, fuel costs and the capital costs to build traditional power plants will increase.

This of course is a mix of distributed solar (ie: rooftop solar) and large-scale utility solar (ex: concentrated solar). There are nuances so check out the article and report.

Here's a rundown of south-bay installers offering full financing:
• BEohana Solar. www.freesolar2008.com
• Horizon Energy System. www.gosolarnow.com
• Petersen-Dean Roofing Systems. www.needaroof.com
• Power Solutions. www.solutionsforpower.com
• REC Solar. www.recsolar.com
• REgrid Power, which is working with SunPower. www.regrid.com and www.sunpowercorp.com
• SolarCity. www.solarcity.com
• StablSolar. www.stablsolar.com

Creative approach to education

And apparently it may hang out there for quite a while.

Updated: Newsome signs SF solar plan

San Francisco has also put up a cool map of solar installations. At Earth2Tech

San Mateo steps on green building

With little fanfare, San Mateo is taking steps towards a terrific green building standard. On Monday, the city council adopted resolutions for mandatory LEED Silver for municipal buildings and a voluntary program for commercial and residential buildings.

The voluntary program is intended to become mandatory for commercial buildings in one year and mandatory for residential buildings in two years per the Sustainable Initiatives Plan.

There was some modest drama. The Sustainable Initiatives Plan set a target of 75 points Green Points Rated (BuildItGreen) but the staff proposal put that at 50 points. 50 points is the target being promoted by the Home Builders Association of Northern California. However, council member Brandt Grotte moved to set the target at 75 points and the rest of the council unanimously agreed.

Not quite as leading edge as some others on the peninsula like Brisbane, Los Altos or Palo Alto but arguably more important in mainstreaming green building in the region as San Mateo is one of the largest cities by population at over 90,000. Only Daly City, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara are larger.

Updated: McCain urges lifting offshore drilling moratorium

McCain is clearly deciding to forgo support of California, environmentalist and possibly most folks concerned with climate. This is consistent with recent statements. When a donor in Richmond summed up his advice as "nuclear, and drill wherever we've got it," McCain responded: "You just gave my speech. Thank you, my friend."


Meanwhile from his ads he's clearly trying to paint a different picture. It's a bit of a mixed message!
Hat-tip Gristmill which has further commentary on the ad (no nuclear images there!)

Project Better Place: in San Francisco?

Silicon Valley leader Shai Agassi has been getting a good bit of attention to his innovative Project Better Place. The innovative approach basically leases all-electric cars on a kind of subscription model with battery swap stations ready to swap batteries on demand. But in this most recent article it appears San Francisco is interested.

In the United States, Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle has said she is interested in her state becoming the first to embrace the electric-car network. Mayor Gavin Newsom also has reportedly expressed interest in making San Francisco the first U.S. metropolis to place electric cars on city roads.

It's worth mentioning that a commentator makes critical remarks regarding batteries overheating, etc. But this is where Tesla's work is so essential given that it has resolved the overheating issue and is reselling its technology.

Gore endorses Obama

A terrific speech by Gore yesterday:

Gore's prior statement here. Of course, the Bay Area is Gore's home away from home. His endorsement will likely carry weight here both among the public at large and among many local leaders.

Hat-tip Obama.com

Solar moves: Intel, Burlingame, San Francisco

Seems like everyone in Silicon Valley wants a piece of the action.

Experts say the solar industry will continue to see a 30 to 40 percent annual growth rate for the next several years.

Continued evidence of that comes with Burlingame now moving to streamline solar and San Francisco putting in place their solar incentives. San Franciscans will get quite the bonus:

Under the program, residents could receive between $3,000 and $6,000 for photovoltaic systems that produce at least 1 kilowatt of electricity. The high end of the payment would be for people whose systems are installed by workers trained by the city's workforce development program. Businesses could receive $1,500 per kilowatt installed, with a cap of $10,000.

Taking Care of Business

As part of a collective effort to generate interest in sustainability among business owners, Sustainable San Mateo County is teaming with the San Carlos Chamber of Commerce and PG&E in offering a free morning workshop on translating green practices into savings. It takes place 8 to 9:30 a.m. Wednesday at the San Carlos library.

Reaching small business owners is a particularly challenging task for sustainability advocates. While governments act out of pressure from constituents and homeowners make conscious choices in their daily lives, hard-working business owners have limited time to consider these concepts while turning a profit. With that in mind, we are all watching how the county's green business certification pilot program is progressing.

Climate in 2 minutes, Alliance & public priority

One of the best shorts on climate I've seen. Short, explanatory and inspiring.
Produced by the UK government. If only our federal government had this level of responsibility, understanding would be going up rather than down (in Pew's annual survey global warming declines from 38% to 35% as a “top priority” for Americans vs. 2007).

In contrast, being direct about climate change is received terribly here in the US among large segments of the population. The Alliance for Climate Protection, based here in the Bay Area, made its first foray into public communications with polarized responses. Here is there first ad with focal group tracking by political party:


Now here is their second round of ads. Count how many times the main speakers say 'climate' or 'global warming':

Green Building Update

The Build It Green Public Agency Council meeting this week (we call it BIG-PAC) offered some interesting updates on green building. I'll summarize some of what I learned.

The new Title 24 coming out this year will have a Chapter 11 on green building voluntary actions that cities can adopt. This is good, in that green building is moving closer to being in the official code. However, it does set up some challenges for the Bay Area, because we have moved beyond the level of actions that will be included. Things to pay attention to:

• Building officials or planning professionals who are not fully informed about green building may think that their city should just wait for these to come out (Jan. 2009) rather than taking action with green building ordinances. It may become confusing because suddenly there will be one more list out there....  and it will appear to be the most legitimate because it's part of Title 24. Don't be fooled!
• When a city passes a green building ordinance that sets requirements on new buildings, they are required to report "findings" on any piece that is stronger than the state code. These findings give reasons why the requirements in this jurisdiction should be stronger than the state requirements - based on local climate, geology and topography. Right now, the only piece of BIG's GreenPointRated (GPR) checklist that needs findings is the energy piece as there is a GPR requirement to be more efficient than Title 24. With the new Chapter 11, we need to watch and see if other areas will need findings. No one is certain yet. But - 
• AB 2939 addresses the rights of cities to have green building programs. If that passes, it will eliminate the need for the concerns mentioned above.

Other news - Sonoma Mountain Village in Rohnert Park will be the first American One Planet Community project. This is a 12 - 15 year building project worth watching.

If you are working on a Green Building Ordinance for a city and using GPR for residential projects, you may have a question about how many points to require. BIG suggests a voluntary 50 points and mentions that the northern CA chapter of the National Home Builders Association (called the Home Builders Association of Northern California - HBANC) has endorsed this. But others - Marin County and Rohnert Park for two - have significantly higher thresholds using the same checklists. Palo Alto also chose higher points recently. 

Some people argue that all cities should implement the program the same way so that the builders and designers know what is needed no matter what city they are in - therefore, everyone should use GPR and 50 points. But others argue that using the same checklist is enough and that cities can choose different levels of points or emphasize certain things without the builders and designers getting confused. I would ask - what will move us most quickly to having better and greener houses being built? Leadership. So let's let the leaders lead!

Tesla may start making its mark

Beyond instilling glamour into the concept of electric cars, Tesla's real contribution may be in commercializing key battery technology. And it's now working on a deal with Daimler.

Meanwhile, hydrogen continues going nowhere.

Sunnyvale Cool Cities review

This team of citizens has been busy!

And if you're in Sunnyvale, make sure to join. Barb is a dynamo and they are moving the city (and region). Here's her report from this week.

..., Sunnyvale's City Council voted to fund our first sustainability coordinator beginning in the coming fiscal year which starts in July. It is a permanent, part-time position. Funding this position allows use of already in-hand grant money to fund a community greenhouse gas audit. Staff plans to do so.

The plan is for our coordinator to work out of the Office of the City Manager. He/she will coordinate the efforts of various departments involved in sustainability; revise city policies to bring them in line with our green vision; conduct outreach to staff, the community and community groups; conduct best practice research; attend regional
meetings and seek grant funding.

While our Sunnyvale Cool Cities Team believes there would be plenty for a full-time coordinator to do, we are pleased with this first step in creating a part-time positition, since it frees funding for the community carbon audit. (Sunnyvale completed its municipal carbon audit of city operations last summer. Implementing the projects implied by the audit--also funded in this budget-- will save the City tens of thousands of dollars.) We will be even happier if staff is successful in its effort to link our part-time slot with a similar position of another city, thus creating a full-time sustainability employee. The thinking is that some of the tasks such as researching grants and best practice, attending regional meetings, and creating staff and community education programs could be done by one employee for two cities.

Regional Transportation - your turn to spend money

Transportation in the Bay Area accounts for at least 50% of the carbon emissions that cause global warming. But how do we address this sector? This is a chance to offer up your opinion and be heard. 

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has an online survey (through June 27) called Transportation 2035 Change in Motion. It was interesting as it is a combination of questions that test and educate on some basic transportation related statistics and it offers choices on how to spend the $37 billion in discretionary funding...  some hard choices. 

Unfortunately it lumps the bicycle paths and roads together in one of the first questions, which bothered me. If it had been divided into two different choices, I would have had a different answer. But I took advantage of the opportunity to add comments there.

On the MTC website, you will find the link to the survey and also a 12 minute video that talks about their challenges and introduces the different needs. It's a good introduction to the issues they grapple with but isn't needed to take the survey.

MTC's invitation to the survey: 

Can you spend $30 billion in ten minutes? That’s approximately how long it will take you to complete the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s online survey for the current phase of the Transportation 2035 planning process. 

Test your grasp of transportation facts, and tell MTC planners and policymakers how you would divvy up the $30 billion in discretionary funding expected to flow to the Bay Area over the next 25 years. Maintain the existing transportation network? Provide more funding to relief traffic? Help reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

Now is your chance to tell us what you think. Log on to www.mtc.ca.gov/T2035 and let us know your priorities by June 27, 2008.

Clean-tech overview

Listen to the first guy. Second guy, not as good. Didn't get to the Q/A because the second guy put me to sleep. (BTW, it's an hour long program)


Hat-tip Gristmill.

Extreme weather - we're not alone

As we close out the driest spring on record in the Bay Area (since records began in 1849), it's worth noting that we're not the only ones hitting extremes.

Obama, McCain energy platform & record

With Barack Obama now the presumptive Democratic nominee, Earth2Tech offers a rundown of his energy policy. McCain's is here.

Bottom line, while McCain's rhetoric is often quite good, he's trying to appease a lot fossil fuel supporters and climate action opponents. McCain has missed every vote tracked by the League of Conservation Voters in 2007 including the vote to restore renewable energy incentives (which went down by one vote even though McCain was in Washington). Overall, there are a lot of problems in McCain's record. Obama isn't perfect though, he has spoken positively on so-called "clean coal" on numerous occasions but is otherwise offering a very strong platform.

San Mateo begins implementing plan

From my op-ed in the San Mateo Daily News

Kudos to the San Mateo City Council. Last week, the Council formally accepted and put into motion initial elements of the sustainable initiatives plan. In this time of soaring fuel costs and a challenged economy, the council's steps show precisely the kind of leadership required to move to abundant renewable energy, stimulate job-building technologies and protect essential resources for the future of our families.
...
This step by the council comes just as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a drought in the state. Smarter use of energy and water are called for in the plan. These are the essential twin pillars of a forward-looking policy. The initial steps set new goals for expanding the use of solar power - a 10 percent increase in the rate of installations each year for the next three years and then 25 percent per year thereafter. And solar is now easier than ever with no-up-front-cost financing that can immediately lower energy bills.

Already a leader in putting homes near the train, the city will build on that by developing improvements to bike and pedestrian pathways and work with schools to promote alternatives to auto drop-offs and pickups such as "walking buses." The city is improving city operations with more efficient lighting in buildings and streetlights, biofuel for vehicles and other valuable measures. Finally, it will also explore appropriate use of recycled water, develop new green building standards and pursue assessment of existing buildings to develop retrofit programs.

However, the city seems inclined to implement lower green building standards than those recommended in the Sustainable Initiatives Plan. Rather than the target of 75 points Green Points Rated, under discussion is setting the level at 50. More in the op-ed.

Federal Liberman-Warner climate bill and 2009

On Environment & Energy TV's OnPoint

Pew's Claussen assesses state of congressional climate talks, looks ahead to 2009

Was last week's Senate climate debate a wasted opportunity? Did the Senate further the climate discussion and lay the groundwork for passage of a bill in 2009? During today's OnPoint, Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, gives her take on last week's Senate debate on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. She addresses possible mismanagement of the bill, what the most contentious issues were, and what the discussion means for the broader climate debate, moving forward. Claussen looks ahead to 2009 and discusses whether last week's discussion puts the Congress in a better position to pass legislation next year.

Claussen provides a thoughtful analysis but loses the opportunity to talk about the benefits good climate legislation will bring including growing the green economy.

New cars on the road: Smart, Tango

Spotted not one but two Smart ForTwos this week, one in SF and another in Mt. View. The cars are attractive and get good but not stellar gas mileage at around 34 mpg. Cars.com has a review, simultaneously hyped and lukewarm.

If I could get the photo off my phone I'd post the ultra-cool all electric Tango I saw charging in a Google parking lot. We'll have to make due with a snap from their website.

The Tango is a kit car with spectacular performance but I'm not sure my wife would go for it. Need just a wee bit more room for groceries.

$6 gas: Emerging consensus on peak oil

CBS reports projections of $6 per gallon of gas this year.


There is some debate going on about the degree to which speculation is driving oil prices but even factoring that into account the fundamentals are that we are at historic highs and demand is going to continue to outstrip supply by growing margins. Even a year ago there seemed less certainty that we have now. Some who agree with this: International Energy Agency, Nicolas Sarkosy, Gordon Brown, T. Boone Pickens and GM.

"These (gas) prices are changing consumer behavior and changing it rapidly," Mr. Wagoner said at a briefing before G.M.'s annual meeting in Wilmington, Del. "We don't believe it's a spike or a temporary shift. We believe it is, by and large, permanent."

This shift is fundamental and plays both for (demand for new energy) and against sound direction (push for coal/nuclear/shale oil etc.) as the price of not only gas but virtually all products and basics like fixing potholes make this very visible and painful.

Used Vege Oil Biodiesel - B99 in San Mateo

Autopia Biofuels (10th and Railroad, San Mateo) is worth a visit even if you don't drive a car that runs on biodiesel. It's a new business that sells a biodiesel that is 99% made from recycled vegetable oil. (the 1% diesel satisfies some government regulation). And it has a wonderful little quickmart too.

Using recycled vegetable oil means that the resource to make the biofuel is available locally  - even as close as McDonalds...  and not only does the vegetable oil replace a petroleum product (diesel gas) it also doesn't use resources to grow crops to make the biofuel. So this B99 (or B100) is the best choice when buying biofuels! Using biofuel instead of diesel significantly reduces the impact on climate change - because it burns an organic product (in this case, vegetable oil) rather than a petroleum product. Some cities run their fleets on biodiesel - for instance the City of San Mateo uses B20 (20% biofuel) in all of its diesel trucks, including fire trucks. B99 offers an even bigger reduction in greenhouse gases. 

If you have a diesel powered car or truck, stop in and talk to owner Austin about switching to biofuel. 

Or just stop in to see the wonderfully clean station and order an organic coffee or buy some recycled toilet paper or Kettle potato chips. (Kettle chips trucks are powered by biodiesel made from their own used vegetable oil! Pretty cool!) T-shirts available too.

If you don't live near San Mateo, maybe you are close to Biofuel Oasis in Berkeley.

Autopia Biofuels, 1025 S. Railroad, San Mateo. 

"New" water sources

Water will likely be an even bigger challenge than energy in the near future. That is leading to the following pragmatic and effective, though unattractively named, option:

Toilet to Tap
Lakes Mead and Powell are drying up, but not to worry. California's Orange County has a new source of drinking water: the toilet. Its $490 million reclamation plant runs treated sewage effluent through microfilters; sprinkles it with hydrogen peroxide; zaps it with ultraviolet rays; and then, when every bacteria, virus, chemical, heavy metal, and hormone has been removed, injects it into the groundwater basin for further filtration. Before you say "Eww," consider this: Almost one-fifth of the volume of the Colorado River, a source of much of the Southwest's tap water, started out as treated sewage.

Hat-tip Sierra Magazine.

Largest, Solar-Powered, Affordable Housing Community in the U.S.

Richmond gets the honor.

EAH Housing, a nonprofit affordable housing developer and manager based in San Rafael California, has announced the dedication of the solar system installed by Sun Light and Power serving 24 buildings and 378 family apartments for this large community on nearly 25 acres.

The solar installation at Crescent Park - a $7 million dollar project installed by Sun Light and Power, based in Berkeley, CA - will help reduce the production of greenhouse gases while providing lower utility costs for this large, family complex. The installation also helps the city of Richmond to meet almost 20% of its 5 MW goal for usage of solar power.

Updated: Aptera on CNN, Obvio delayed, Hummer swan song?

230 miles per gallon never looked so good.

Incidentally, Aptera is going into production at the end of this year. You can already reserve yours. Price is a not unreasonable $27,000.

Another would-be contender, the Lotus designed Obvio looked promising and Zap had planned to import the car this year. But it has run into trouble and won't be showing up any time soon. Zap did succeed in getting its other, less inspiring cars the CARB incentives.

And the beloved Hummer - testament to status and gluttony, whose local dealerships were already troubled, may be sold off by GM. RIP.

Gavin Newsom on SF green building

From his testimony to Congress May 16th, Newsom discusses the benefits in this brief clip.


Hat-tip EnergyEnvironment.tv

Drought declared in California

Calling for a 20% cut in water usage Schwarzenegger declared a state-wide drought.

The governor's pronouncement follows the driest spring on record and two years of below-normal precipitation. Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, the backbone of the state's water supply, stands at two-thirds of normal; dusty banks line many important reservoirs; and environmental rulings have slashed water pumped from the crucial Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta - all while California's booming population threatens to overwhelm some of the state's key infrastructure.

This follows on some water utilities like East Bay Municipal Utility District already implementing water rationing as a result of lagging snow packs.

This undoubtedly will spur more talk of desalinisation, an outrageously cost and energy expensive option or dams.

But we should first be looking at the least expensive and most accessible option - water efficiency. One such clever example is the "smart sprinkler" like WeatherTrak

EBay just installed WeatherTrak at its North First Street campus in San Jose, the home of its first green building. It will enable a campus that uses 32 million gallons of water a year to save 8 million to 10 million gallons, said Gary Dillabough, eBay's general manager of corporate environmental initiatives.

Even better will be to move to xeriscape native landscaping. This article from 2006 notes that landscape watering accounts for 50-60% of residential water use. I was pleasantly surprised to see drought tolerant native plants appearing in southern California road medians - a sign that some municipalities are getting the message and have even been promoting natives.

Sunnyvale: key vote Monday. San Carlos declines

Report from Barb:

It's crunch time in Sunnyvale. Our FY 08-09 budget is in the last phase of consideration. The proposed budget by staff has been posted on line and will be considered at Friday's budget workshop. (An earlier budget workshop was held in January.) A public hearing will be held June 3, with final adoption scheduled for June 10.

Council will decide whether to act decisively and fund a full-time sustainability coordinator or adopt a half measure, the incremental improvement of a half-time position. The differences are significant. Besides the obvious that a full-time position would have twice the time to work on these issues and be present with staff for a full, rather than a half day, according to staff:

* only a full-time sustainability coordinator would have time to oversee our community carbon audit and make use of its results
* only a full-time coordinator would be able to systematically educate the entire city staff about sustainability goals and practices with the eye to culture change
* only a full-time coordinator would be tasked with pro-actively revising city policies to bring them in line with our sustainability goals
* only a full-time worker would have time to create a strategic sustainability plan.

Four of our members spoke to Council last week in support of a full-time position and the community audit. We have spoken and written about the audit many times over the months. We have spoken to urge Council to view sustainability as a key responsibility of local government. We have had two recent letters in the local Sun. The first made the case that environmental protection is a core function of city government; the second arguing for a full time coordinator. Our team has discussed the coordinator issue with mayor and three council members during our meetings. We have plans to speak at the budget workshop and again at the public hearing. We have submitted another LTE to the Sun. We have e-mailed Council. Three of our members are on the Mayor's Green Ribbon Committee. That group has lobbied three councilmembers for the coordinator and the audit. This week it published letters in support of the full time position in the Sun and the Merc. But money is tight. The vote may be tight.

So that's where we are.

Updated: in related news San Carlos declined to sign the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement instead signing a statement basically saying that action on global warming was a good thing and the city may do some things. On the plus side, San Carlos did receive a grant to develop a climate action plan as part of its General Plan so we should see something.

Coming soon...

I'm counting the days. More.

HP play in solar

Hewlett-Packard licenses technology to Livermore-based startup called Xtreme Energetics.

Transit: ridership and budgets go opposite directions

As gas prices soar, ridership is up across all the transit options.

With an average 35,200 weekday riders logged during the first three months of the year, Caltrain saw a 6.37 percent jump in ridership. BART, with 366,000 weekday riders during the reporting period, experienced a 4.5 percent bump. And even Muni, which had been losing riders in recent years and provides close to 700,000 trips a day, experienced a 4.7 percent increase, according to the data, which is based on estimates.

But under the governor's proposed budget all transit would see huge cuts in an effort to deal with the budget shortfall.

CA to declare drought tomorrow

Schwartzenegger reportedly will make the declaration tomorrow. Also, the governor is apparently working on rules which will require all agencies to incorporate in all plans the expectation of 6-12 inches of sea level rise in the next decade.

Food prices

Locally and across the country, gas is yielding escalating food prices. Internationally we have riots. TriplePundit has an excellent discussion on whether Biofuels the Root Cause of Rising Food Prices?

Updated: Brisbane & Los Altos - first on the peninsula with Green Building requirements!

Let's not forget Brisbane... they were the very first on the peninsula to pass a green building ordinance in Jan. 2008. The ordinance requires that commercial buildings over 10,000 square feet be built to LEED Silver (as verified by the city, not the USGBC) and that residential developments with 20 or more units must earn 50 points on the GreenPointsRated checklist by Build it Green.

These are not the strongest requirements, but they were first! So, by my count, Palo Alto is third after Brisbane and the County of San Mateo. And hopefully, many more to come!

Updated: Kacey has corrected us. We'll consider it a tie. Los Altos passed a green building standards in the October 2007 that went into effect Jan 08. Requires all new residential projects (and remodels over 50%) be Green Point Rated 50 points minimum. Requires all municipal new construction over 7500 SF to be LEED certified. Requires all commercial and residential projects beat Title 24 by 15%. It was reported as being a temporary ordinance, we're following up on whether it was made permanent.

Green Building advances in Palo Alto

I ran into a Palo Alto council member this weekend. The council member commented that Palo Alto passed its green building ordinance. They quietly snuck it in earlier in May. And it is a good one with elements for commercial and residential new construction and importantly, renovations including:

Commercial new construction > 5,000 sq. ft. LEED-Silver
Residential new construction > 1,250 sq. ft. 70 points on GreenPoints checklist

These are the firstthird city standards for the peninsula (San Mateo County having set standards in February). Palo Alto's are great standards and are a terrific bar for other cities to meet. And the council member noted that only in Palo Alto would a builder advocate for higher standards and the non-profit (Build it Green) advocate for lower. Build It Green's relationship with the Home Builders Association of Northern California clearly visible here as HBANC endorsed mandatory standards but only at 50 points. Unfortunately, local government regional efforts such as Santa Clara County Cities Association and a similar unnamed informal effort in San Mateo county appear to be aiming at this lower standard though at least they are directionally supportive.

The San Jose Mercury carried an interview with Dan Geiger, head of the U.S. Green Building Council's Northern California chapter (LEED just opened a Silicon Valley chapter too).